By Neil Gaiman, published by HarperCollins

Another book by the literary Genius, Neil Gaiman!

This, however, is a collection of short stories written by Gaiman over the years: Recent and old all together in a treasury of adventure. The short stories range from an encounter with a Troll under a bridge, to food fanatics tasting a phoenix, to a boy who runs away from home and meets a ghost.

All of the short stories and captivating… funny… and sometimes a little scary! I found each one unique and fun, and as Neil Gaiman said himself in the introduction, short stories can stay with you forever- you might forget what happened or things about the main characters but short stories can always stay with you. Well these all will! I’ll treasure my M is for Magic book- I really loved it!

By Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Dave McKean and published by Bloomsbury

On Monday i will be seeing Neil Gaiman in conversation with Phillip Pullman- so what better to do until then than read some of his books?

Nobody Owens (or Bod, for short) survived a murder on his family by escaping from his cot when he was just  baby. He crawled into the graveyard up the road, and was found by the ghosts occupying it. He was renamed as Nobody and accepted into the graveyard. The story focuses on Bod as he grows up learning the tricks of the trades to being a ghost: learning their abilities yet being alive. Soon he ventures out of the graveyard in the search to buy a headstone for his dead friend… but soon, the man Jack who had murdered his family years ago has come back to finish Bod off! Where can Bod go for help? How can he escape Jack’s clutches again? Read this amazing novel to discover the truth!

I’ve had this book lying on my bookshelf for a while now, and found it again a few days ago when i was hunting for my Neil Gaiman books (M is for Magic&Coraline -reviews up soon) to re-read before i saw the author at the event on Monday. But why had i missed out this book? It was brilliant! As Garth Nix quoted on the back of my copy, it really is the kind of book you wish you had discovered earlier in your life so you can read it over and over again, and that you wish you had written yourself because of it being an unmistakable masterpiece.

I love how Neil Gaiman perfectly tells this story of horror, crime and fantasy as a book perfect for children to curl up with. It has it’s heart warming parts and it’s terrifyingly chilling parts. It covers the topics of Friendship and Hope, entwining them with a gripping and spooky story-line.

I I would definitely recommend this to children and young teens, but i’m sure adults would love this too!

Here is a review posted before, but I am reposting it for my ‘scary Reads’ Halloween reviews!

Published by Dutton books

This book may be only 180 pages or so, but it is amazing!

Step into the world of teenager Vlad,a half vampire boy. His dad was a vampire, his mum a human, and they both perished in an unexplainable fire three years ago. Vlad now lives with his mum’s old friend Nelly, andtries to live a normal life with the help of his best mate Henry.

Soon, disaster strikes as a substitute teacher takes over the place of Vlad’s usual teacher who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The sub. seems to be catching on to Vlad’s secret, fast….can Vlad keep his identity hidden from the strange Mr. Otis? Simultaneously, Vlad uncovers secret of his parents, and vampires… can he solve this mystery too?

All in all, this book is a great teen read and I really enjoyed it. It’s fast-paced, exciting, and leaves you awake at night wanting to read more! I really loved it, and can’t wait to read about Vlad’s next adventures- out now…

Georgia

By Tim Burton, published by Faber&Faber

Award winning Director of creepy, haunting, weird and wonderful movies… Tim Burton wrote a short, 90 page book of haunting short poems!

This book is crammed with creepy poems, about many different things… such as an Oyster Boy, Stain-boy the unfortunate superhero, a girl with many eyes and Jimmy the penguin boy!

I am quite a fan of Tim Burton and his awesome films. I was given this book quite a while back, but found it recently and thought it would be great for my ‘scary reads’ Halloween book challenge, even though it wasn’t on my to-do list a few blogs ago!

All stories, whether they are the three line long ones of the three page long ones, have Burton’s  trademark essence of dark humor. It could be read in about 20 minutes, but i really loved it all the same! With the poets illustrations accompanying each verse; the poems really spring to life. It’s a brilliant, funny, haunting read, check it out!

By Jeyn Roberts, published by Macmillan Childrens’ Books

Moments after several huge earthquakes shake every continent on Earth, something strange starts happening. An inner rage has been released and some people cannot fight it. For those who can, life becomes a battle to survive…

This awesome, thrill ride of a book follows four teenagers through an apocalyptic world. They all experienced terrible times at the start of the disaster. Clementine was the only escapee of a town hall meeting gone massacre. Masons’ mother is involved in a car accident and whilst Mason is in hospital with her whilst she take her last breath, his school and friends in it are burnt to the ground.Aries is one of the few survivors of a bus crash which happened because of an earthquake… and her best friend is one of the killed people on the bus. Michael watches a hideous road rage become so extreme with two deaths and a fight.These four teens had never met… but as the struggle for survival in a torn, dystopian world, they meet under the most uncommon circumstances!

This was the first book review of the month for my ‘halloween-ey’ reads challenge for October! And it was a great choice too. This book was jam-packed with the best ingredients for the perfect dystopian book… Horror, raw and gritty violence, Heartbreak, loss and sorrow, hope and fighting. I loved it! Each page turned itself, it was so full of suspense and scares. who would’ve thought that a YA Authors first book could be so gripping, and so awesome?

I would definitely recommend this to any teenager (above about 12, it’s quite scary at a lot of points!) and adult. It’s a great spooky read!

Meet the intrepid Felicity, or Felix, and follow her as she goes through the Spanish Civil War and faces the struggle of being a nurse, and falling in love!

Felix, (Felicity), meets Nat when he bashes his head. After tending to him, they get to know each other… then torn apart by the Spanish civil War! Nat joins in with the fighting, then Felix becomes a Nurse in the hope of seeing him again. Devastation, shock and adventure follows! two of the characters George, who is in love with Felix, and a certain double crosser (I wont say names! I’ll ruin the story!) turn things upside down… but can Felix and Nat stick together through all of this, and the War that is slowly tearing them apart? Read this amazing novel to find out!

I’m usually reading Dystopian and horror, crime novels etc… I will admit I haven’t read that many historical books. But this really was amazing! It has a great, brave heroine who by far is my favorite character, I really loved her! Nat and George are great characters too, all very unique and stand out from other book characters from other book characters. The story was absolutely brilliant too, with lots of drama because of the love triangle and the World Famous War! It ticks all of the boxes for my idea of a great book; Love, Heartbreak, adventure, drama… The perfect book to curl up with!

Keep an eye on Lydia Syson, I think more great books like this one are going to come from her!

By Sally Gardner, Published by Hot Key Books

What if the football hadn’t gone over the wall? What if Hector hadn’t gone looking for it? What if he hadn’t kept the dark secret to himself? What if…?

Then i suppose i would be telling myself another story. You see, the ‘What if’s’ are as boundless as the stars…

Standish Treadwell is a dyslexic boy living in the year of the famous moon landing. He forms a special bond with his next door neighbor Hector… but one day Hector and his family are taken away by the soldiers of the Motherland. What has happened to them? Where have they been taken, and what does it have to do with Hectors’ dad? Standish and his beloved Grandfather strive to get to the bottom of the mystery and get Hector and his family back… and on the way they discover the truth of a terrible, dark lie by the motherland…

This book is amazing! Another Masterpiece by Sally Gardner, award winning author. I love how she has written it in the view of a boy with dyslexia, because it is really close to the authors heart seeing as she is dyslexic herself. I found it intriguing, believable, and enjoyable. It leaves you wanting to know what happens after the ending… but It’s quite violent at parts though, so not for younger readers!

*ALSO: Be sure to check out the MAGGOT MOON app, for iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad! It’s an all new way of telling the brilliant story, with animated parts, and special bits that can be activated by the touch screen. Also, following the fact that Standish Treadwell is Dyslexic, there are buttons and icons which makes the words swim around the page just as a dyslexic person would see it. I would recommend checking this out as well as the normal book!

By Daniel Finn, Published by Macmillan

‘When a storm is coming, there’s nothing you can do to stop it. You don’t go looking for the lightning, not if you want to make it out alive…’

Meet Reve- only a boy but an orphan too, who makes a living in his seaside village of Riconda. His dad was murdered, his mother ran off with a policeman to the city. Reve’s sister, Mi, is odd. She has her mothers’ hair; flame-red, and can predict the future.

When Reve sees a vision of a woman with flaming red hair in the sea, he tells Mi. And Mi reckons the woman is their long lost mother! Leaving the sudden dangers and everything they ever knew in Riconda, they embark on a mission to uncover their mum. But, as quoted on the front of the book, at the eye of the storm you discover the truth… and there is more to the story than Reve and Mi think!

I didn’t exactly get the book at first- with so many characters whom I wasn’t introduced to as well as I would have wanted, but I definitely worked it out after a while! I really loved Mi, and her special talent, I thought that was really great and unique.

The story really didn’t unravel in the way I expected- it was much better than I thought! I love how I thought the story was going to end happily ever after once they come back from the city, but there is such an awesome twist that I really loved- but can’t say a word about as that shall ruin the book.

Overall, Daniel Finn is an author to keep an eye on- I think there will be many more brilliant books to come from him! He has created such a unique, crazy world that’s full of raw emotion and thrills, amazing friendships and hope.